Stephen Hoadley: international relations expert on whether Iran will close the Strait of Hormuz

Following the recent US strikes on Iran, experts have voiced concerns over whether Iran will close the Strait of Hormuz.

The strait is considered a significant oil 'choke point' with one fifth of global oil supplies and a third of liquefied natural gas passing through it.

International relations expert Stephen Hoadley says it's an option Iran's considering - and warns closing it will come with significant implications.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
And let's get on to the most important stuff of

(00:01):
the day. After America's attack on Iran over the weekend,
the big question now is whether Iran will close the
Strait of Homos. Now twenty percent of the woods world's
oil is shipped through this narrow strait. It runs between
the coasts of Iran and Orman. Stephen Hoadley is a
retired professor of international relations and with us right now, Hey, Stephen,
good evening, Heather, Stephen, thank you for joining us. This

(00:22):
is not going to happen, is it now?

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Well, it may happen. It's all option, and even just
the threat of closing it would be enough to send
insurance rates higher to prevent other ships from entering. Apparently,
the number of ships in the Gulf has declined from
seven hundred and fifty to seven hundred and continuing to fall.
There is a lot of ships, A lot of companies

(00:46):
are simply not putting their ships into danger because they
anticipate the possibility of the closure of the street.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
How would they actually close.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
It with military action? They with minds in the water.
The channels are only six kilometers wide, three kilometers one
way and three kilometers coming the other way. They've got
fast patrol boats armed with rough propelled grenades. They've got
short range artillery, they've short range missiles, the variety of

(01:19):
things that could harass. Remember, an oil tanker is very vulnerable.
They're not armored, they're not armed. They could not withstand
even a small piece of artillery and they might burst
into flames. So those ships, skippers are going to stand back,
they're going to anchor out, they're going to stay away
from harm's way. That will be enough to send up

(01:41):
the price of oil.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
I see that Marco Rubio has gone on Fox today
and called on China to intervene here and have a
chat to Iran and stop this from happening. Would that work?
Do you suspict that?

Speaker 2 (01:53):
Well, China's oil does come out of the Strait from Iran,
it's smuggled. Iran is under strict sanction from the West,
but of course they ignore those sanctions. China does too,
and gets oil from Russia in the same way. But yeah,
it would be interesting to strange bedfellows, the United States

(02:15):
and China ganging up on Iran to say, don't close
the straits or moose the Chinese. I think do have
a strong point. I think they may prevail, and it
could be that the Iranians will be very selective in
their targeting. If they do in fact target any ships,
they can identify them one by one. They can target

(02:36):
them if they're related to the United States or to Israel,
and let the Chinese ships get a free pass through
the Straits.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
Stephen, You've been doing this for a very long time,
so I want you to take on it. Did the
Americans make a mistake bombing those sites?

Speaker 2 (02:51):
Well, look, we're divided, The Prime minister is divided, the
Foreign minister is divided. Everyone is trying to be very
kind to Donald Trump. We don't want nuclear weapon, so
we approved in that respect. We don't want to invade
other people's countries, so we disapproved in that respect. I
think the world, I think New Zealanders are pretty divided
on the whole question. So it's not an easy call.

(03:14):
If it turns to custard the way the Iraq invasion
did in two thousand and three and the Afghan invasion did,
we will look back and say it was a terrible mistake. If, however,
there is a regime change and the government, like Syrian
government next door, suddenly becomes pro West and moderate will say, well,

(03:34):
it wasn't a mistake. It was jolly good to put
down the Iranians and relieve this dark shadow that's lafted
over the Middle East since nineteen seventy nine, and you know,
give Israel a break.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
Stephen, thank you very much for you take on everything.
I really appreciate your expertise that Stephen Hardley, retired professor.
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